


Angsty Meg

by Shatterpath



Series: Doggie Aspects [3]
Category: JAG, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-08-02
Updated: 2002-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-05 00:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/400087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meg has not recovered from the head trauma that she suffered from during Snake-Eyes final rampage. Will she take an insane chance when the SGC offers it? Not one, but two lives hang in the balance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Angsty Meg

**Author's Note:**

> Aspects prompt #4- Angsty
> 
> Meg. From Wendy

++ Meg ++

 

(8-2-02)

 

Memory.

 

Comprehension.

 

Coordination.

 

All are fractured now. Most days, the reality of my new existence passes in a blur of being mostly in the moment. The past and future are states of being that are irregular at best. On the clear days, this body, this mind, this life, are all a prison.

 

When I woke that first time, I knew something was direly wrong. Before I could understand the information all of the doctors tried to tell me, my body told me what I really needed to know. The void that was once my legs and lower body has never filled. The sharp processes of a mind well-honed remain as fractured as shattered glass.

 

How does one deal with the change wrought by accident? Sometimes I feel pitiful and jinxed, for being caught by a circumstance that I could have perhaps been better prepared for. Sometimes, I am just thankful to be alive. And every moment, no matter how fuzzy my brain is that day, I can see those maddened red eyes as Garcia charged me. Unfortunately, that is one memory that will not go away.

 

They ask me questions, the blur of doctors and nurses and specialists. Sometimes I can answer; sometimes their mouths make so much incomprehensible noise. They are careful around me, for loud sounds, bright lights, strong smells, the stimulation of my remaining nerves, are agonizing. Sometimes, I remember that the sensitivity is from the crushing of my skull.

 

On the days where I’m clear, I try to skirt that thought as best I can.

 

My vision is so bad now, actually blacking out at times, that I may as well be blind.

 

But today… today something is different.

 

Blurry and vague, I am caught up in the fog that defines my reality, when voices wash over me. Like being underwater, I can make out that they speak words, but cannot comprehend. A part of my brain, the part that makes me survive day after day of this hell, perks up at something and a sensation I have thought forgotten washes over me.

 

Curiosity.

 

Someone leans over me, filling my blurred vision, closer and more intimate than anyone has been in a very long time. I recognize a shock of blonde hair, a smudge of blue eyes, the shadow of a smile in this stranger that I have the strangest feeling I should know.

 

“Meg,” she whispers, feather soft, and I focus on the movement of her mouth, forming my small name. “Meg,” drifts past me again, almost as though she is calling me. Curious, I struggle to focus, stunned when her face becomes suddenly clear.

 

Surprise, a feeling I thought numbed by the twists and turns of my life.

 

Surprise, for it's like looking in a mirror.

 

The smile, so like my own, is melancholy, the bittersweet echoed in her eyes, and in the tender touch of her fingers on my forehead. Everyone seems to be afraid to touch me, even those that care about me, and I feel a need like starvation filled by this stranger’s fingers and face.

 

“Meg,” once more falls from her lips like life-giving rain, drawing in the scattered shards of my broken mind, making me focus. “My name is Dace.”

 

Stunned. The word comes easily to me suddenly, and reflexively my jaw and throat work to shape the name. The FBI agent told me she looked like me, but it’s stunning to look her in the face. There is a scar at her temple, pink and still raw-looking. Somehow, I know how she got that. The same way that I became broken.

 

“Meg, there are some people here that can help you.”

 

Help me? Help me what? Some of that must show in my expression, for Dace smiles again, and I can see the differences between us, despite the mirror features.

 

“Will you trust me?”

 

There is something about her that pulls me, and I nod my head just that little bit. I cannot look away as her companions lean in close, their hands coming still closer, the details hazy as my eyes are trapped by hers. A man and a woman, their voices murmuring, the warm vigor of their voices given form, golden tendrils of energy undulating down to touch me like living things.

 

And what a touch it is. Sensual and warm, like a relaxing bath, it’s a caress across every surface. For the first time in my life, I am aware of the organs held protectively by the shell of my body, and how these eight months of being bedridden has made them suffer. There are even sparks, like fireworks in the void I try so hard to ignore.

 

Dace’s eyes are blurred by the choking tears, and I think that may be my voice sobbing so desperately. Again and again the golden energy washes through me, like the ocean building and cleaning the beach. Something glows a gentle red, near my head, setting brain and skull abuzz. Once more, Dace smiles that gentle, charismatic smile. “Feels good, huh?”

 

Like a beach cleaned by the push and pull of the crashing ocean, the haze recedes. Not completely, for the fog of injury still clings to me, but even a small relief is a miracle to me. Neural pathways clear some, parts of my brain suddenly seem more awake, and the constant pain where the wall crushed my skull as Garcia tackled me…

 

That pain evaporates.

 

A woman’s voice groans wearily, very close to my head, and breathes, “That is exhausting. That’s it, Dace, that’s all we can do.” The anchoring blue eyes flicker just a bit in that direction in acknowledgment. A man’s voice, behind Dace, murmurs agreement, but I am too caught up in the wonder of just feeling more!

 

“Dace,” I whisper and her attention is instantly riveted on me once more. There is something magnetic about that smile, and it is one of the things that makes her look just that little bit different from the features we share.

 

“Welcome back.”

 

# * # *

 

Wakefulness comes slowly, but more peacefully than it has since the morning I spotted Garcia’s picture posted on the APB list. A sleepy note is pushed out by my throat, and muscles shift in wakefulness, a blissful sensation. Something rustles nearby and I turn my head, expecting to see my doppelganger.

 

Instead, is a towering, striking redheaded woman with flashing green eyes… dressed as an Air Force major. A lifetime of practice lets my miraculously working eyes pick out the name on the shiny brass nameplate pinned to her chest. “Major Taylor,” I whisper, my voice hoarse and gravelly. A smile ghosts over her face.

 

“If you try and salute, I’ll shoot you,” she deadpans dryly and I actually find myself chuckling.

 

“I’m surprised to see the Air Force here.”

 

The strangest expression drifts over her face, pain and hope and things I can’t even identify. “My name is Karen. I go way back with Dace. For getting on twenty years now we’ve been like sisters.” Puzzled, but willing to hear her out, I nod as best I can. “I stood guard over you when you were hurt.” Emerald eyes blaze with emotion and intensity. “You saved her life, almost at the cost of your own. I will never forget that.”

 

There are little, if any, memories of my encounter with whatever Dwayne Garcia turned into. I’ve tried to hold onto the memories of the sweet and charismatic Marine I dated all those years ago. Before I can speak, Karen Taylor’s voice has resumed, heavy with emotion.

 

“Listen, I work with an elite group that has access to technologies most of the world will never see. The Healing Device was one of them. Your security clearance was pretty high before your medical discharge, so I can work with that, but you would be getting into something…”

 

“Major,” I interrupt gently, surprised at my near-amusement at all of this. “You’re rambling.”

 

A real smile shows off the woman’s good looks, and a strange moment of understanding passes between us. Whoever these people are, I have a good feeling about them, and decide then and there that whatever is they propose, why else would this woman be here, I will go along with it. How weird could it be?

 

Famous last words.

 

The proposal, for I got that one bang on, is barely comprehensible. Karen struggles to explain, obviously editing what she is saying. Something would be living not with me, but in me. Sharing not just my body, but my cognitive space. A symbiote, a life form the likes of which I’ve never seen or even imagined. Karen tells me that most of these symbiotes, who have some mouthful of a gibberish name that sounds something like ghoul, are the bad guys. Interested only in exploiting humanity, they inevitably created opposition in their own ranks. Effectively immortal, one of their own decided that the way humans were treated was wrong.

 

Karen seems inordinately proud that I can actually remember more of what she’s trying to communicate than I give myself credit for. Bet she’s got small children at home.

 

So, the bad guy gone good created a new race and went their own way. Only, she got herself trapped and exploited a long time ago. The good guys thought she was dead, and that may still happen if she doesn’t get a host.

 

It sounds sort of vampiric and creepy to me, but I haven’t really been clear on anything in a very long time, so who's to say.

 

“Would you like to meet one?”

 

Okay, now I’m focused on Karen again. “Meet one?”

 

“Actually, you already have, technically.”

 

Then it hits me.

 

The man and woman who did something to my insides so that I felt better than I have since Garcia turned on me. As though conjured up by my realization, the door swings open, and there is a small, handsome woman there. Auburn hair is pulled back into a ponytail, and her thin mouth smiles faintly. Nothing about her seems out of the ordinary, but I’m guessing that appearances can be deceiving. “Hello, Meg,” she says warmly, standing beside the bed. “My name is Alexis Mulder. I’m a doctor and an old friend of someone both Karen and I know well. She was the woman with the kind eyes you saw earlier.” The memory makes me grin, not just from the woman’s remembered kindness, but that I can remember it at all. “In early 2000, I was diagnosed, completely out of the blue, with deadly lymphatic cancer. I would have died, if not for Lantesh. Watch.”

 

Something shifts in the way her body is held, the cadence of her breath, a thousand little details that identify a person as an individual. The gunmetal blue eyes close for a moment, and when they snap open…

 

They glow.

 

For a moment, the gunmetal-blue irises and the whites surrounding them radiate a whitish light like a bulb behind a lampshade. I know, deep in my bones, that I am no longer looking at Alexis Mulder, and Karen’s story is starting to make sense.

 

“Hello Meg,” Alexis’ voice says, but it echoes strangely, like she’s talking through some kind of voice modulator. “My name is Lantesh. Due to the deception and treachery of the Goa’uld, my last, beloved host was killed. Alex traded a normal life for a second chance. We have the ability to heal incredible amounts of damage done to our hosts, and it is a small price to pay for the benefits to both life forms.” The smile is melancholy, but hopeful. “Ours is a difficult life, spent in secrecy and danger. But it is a good life, and we accomplish much. Our Queen has been lost to us for so long, that even we, long lived as we are, believed her gone.” There is desperation in the strange voice of Lantesh, speaking through Alexis’ body. “Karen, and others, spoke to our Queen, and she was moved by your story. Perhaps both of you could be improved by coming together as one?”

 

There is something almost child-like in this entity’s desperation. “She’s your mother, isn’t she?”

 

Glancing away, Lantesh takes a moment to nod.

 

What they are offering me is quite a package. To perhaps be healed, to accomplish great and dangerous things, to never be alone again.

 

To never be alone again.

 

Huh. Imagine that.

 

“Lantesh,” I find myself speaking up, calm and self-assured. “Bring your… Queen to me.”

 

Once the decision is made, there is a flurry of activity coming to a head with Karen and the man that healed me, I think, bringing in a heavy, nondescript container.

 

“The symbiotes,” Alexis’ voice says, devoid of the strange echo from earlier. “Are about two feet long and snake-like in shape. They enter a host body anywhere in the throat region, as they require intimate contact with the brainstem and the base of the brain.” That hits a weirdness and fear threshold and she smiles at my sharp look. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds. The entry pain is over almost as soon as your nerves will react to it. This species has thousands of years of practice in cohabiting with us. The first thing that set the To’kra apart from the Goa’uld is that Egeria learned to respect humanity. The oldest agreement is that the To’kra do not keep unwilling hosts.”

 

Keep, not take. Interesting choice of words. Before I can ask any questions, the man is speaking a strange, rasping language, his voice echoing the same way that Lantesh did earlier.

 

Something in the box is sloshing in a liquid and makes a horrible screeching noise.

 

What the fuck have I gotten myself into?

 

“Without you, she’ll die,” Karen suddenly chimes in. “I’ve been fighting the evil cousins for years now, and they’re horrible. But the To’kra are different, and they’ve already saved several people that mean something to someone inside of the organization that fights the Goa’uld. Alexis here is an old friend of Janet Fraiser, our CMO, and Jacob is the father of one of our most important members.” Sighing, Karen ran her fingers over her carefully coifed hair. “I won’t lie to you and say that there’s no big deal about this, because there is. But I trust these two, and Egeria has had a rough time at the hands of humans and was not going to allow herself to survive. But I wouldn’t have pulled Dace in on this to get through to you if I didn’t believe that there are only benefits. You won’t regret it, I swear.”

 

I can see the truth in her, as the revulsion and relief is as obvious as her red hair.

 

“Where is Dace?”

 

That question makes her smile. “We found out that the symbiotes and the type of human that Dace is have a long and checkered history. For both her sanity as well as Egeria’s, we decided to keep them separated. Unless you’d feel better with Dace in here.”

 

“Oddly, I think I would.”

 

“Done. Alex, could you drag her in? I think to prove something to myself, I’ll get Egeria.”

 

And despite of her obvious revulsion, Karen does just that. Dipping her hands into the case, she comes up with a dripping wet serpent of a figure that coils around her hands. The creature flares a four-pronged mouth and shrieks again, prompting Jacob to speak reassuringly. Dinosaur-like fins flicker from the serpentine body, and that strange head swings towards me.

 

Nothing that animalistic looking should display so much intelligent awareness. But this animal-like entity is indeed intelligent, and needs me as much as I obviously need her.

 

So, I find that part of me that’s brave and takes risks and gambles… and reach out my hand for her. There is an obvious hesitation, as Egeria hangs in Karen’s nervous hands, before that strange, alien head slithers out, and we touch for the first time.

 

Cool and wet, with the faint sensation of slick and scales, she feels the way I imagine a sea snake must feel. My smile must be encouraging, because the muscular weight of her slithers up my arm, pausing to huddle and shiver against my skin.

 

“She’s afraid,” Jacob’s voice is gentle and kind. “She gave up on the decency of humanity, and here you are, willing to sacrifice.”

 

“We’re both getting something out of it. Frankly, I have nothing to lose.”

 

That brings Egeria’s head up, and she makes her strange noise again, only this time, it sounds distinctly conversational, sympathetic even.

 

“The easiest entry,” Jacob smiles fatherly. “Is through the mouth. It’ll be quick, I know from experience.”

 

And his eyes flare with light just as Alex’s did.

 

Now comes the hard part. Now comes the leap of faith that these strangers are telling me the truth. Just inches away, Egeria weaves nervously, like a cobra wondering if it should attack or retreat. But it comes down to what I just told Jacob.

 

I have nothing to lose.

 

So I open my mouth.

 

And take a leap of faith.


End file.
